Interview

The ride in my car was almost as frightening as my first time on a roller coaster. No, I hadn’t been in any near-death interactions on the highway, it was just that horrible sensation of listening to the Google-Maps voice as it took me somewhere I’d never been before, telling me over and over to turn left at a certain upcoming, now-happening, almost-missed-it place and trying to get me there by a certain time. I was flustered and fragile, I could count my own heartbeats if somebody just slipped a pen into my hand, but the sun, unconcerned, shone over me when I opened my car door. The birds and continuing traffic ignored my body’s story, and, as per usual, I had to keep myself alive without their help.

I took a deep breath and walked toward the door that looked most convincingly to be the front one. Inside and up the stairs I walked, wondering whether my legs were really trembling and how I could stop it. At the top, I opened a loud-clicking-door and, before it could clack shut, a stalwart fellow with black hair, a pencil behind his ear, and some sort of plaid button-down extended a hand to me.

“Hello! It’s Melanie, right?”

I smiled and warm feelings of hope ran through my body. “Yes, how do you know me?”

“I recognize you from your video--” he trailed off, apparently waiting for me to do something.

I did not respond with intelligence.

“. . . on your application.”

I paused again, stupidly, then suddenly said “Oh!” and I laughed at myself, “Yes, I did that, didn’t I?”

My eyes or maybe my face told him too much; an amateur videographer, I’d taken the invitation on the application to “introduce myself via video” seriously. It wasn’t a mistake, just a risk I’d not taken before. His positive energy had me hoping I’d done a decent job of it though now he could see how scared I was by my inability to think in this situation.

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll get you set up with the interviewers and then I’ll take you on a tour of the place.” He said.

I smiled, I thanked him, there was much nodding from both of us as I followed him but my body remembered what was coming to it; there was no way over, around, or under this interview. It had to be gone through. I had to walk into a dark-ish room and select a low, black chair that may or may not be the best vantage point for this thing. I had to talk with the lady who was not the one in charge but was some kind of advocate for me, she had a notebook. The man who came in to do the deed looked entirely unamused, and somewhere in the middle of a very important paragraph about my reasons for existence and my future value to the school, my voice gave out and I had to whisper. Choking, drinking water, feeling confused, it was all so normal for this sort of thing yet, somehow, the predictability did not take the pain of doing it away.

At that point in my life, the moment of the interview’s end, I’d had one successful and one failed interview on my record. Without much feedback as to why I’d been rejected in the one I failed, I had no bearing on what to alter about myself to improve performance for the next time. Here I was giving it another shot and I was 50% guaranteed I’d leave the interview covered in disappointment and failure. Why would I risk that kind of pain? Rejection hurts! Especially when it is never explained!

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When the friendly guy finished giving me a tour, I said my goodbyes and my “hope to see you again” and I walked back to my car; I forced myself to take a deep breath and try to relax before driving back to my house. What could comfort me now that I had to wait for a response? Like the wind and the cars driving around me, I had no control over the man’s reply, and, if the woman, by any stretch of the imagination advocated for someone else she met before - maybe a more intelligent girl or a sharp and charismatic guy - or if the man was truly as bored the whole time as I seemed to make him, there was nothing I could do. My only comfort lay in reminding myself that we three are all humans.

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The truth is an Interviewer is a person of some kind who has work that someone else wants or even needs for them to get done and they have beloved things or beloved ones who require some of their time.. Think of the weight of their life, think of the hope they have in talking with a candidate who can handle the responsibilities they need to see done. Can you be the embodiment of that hope?

There is a person or a board of persons who will call that interviewer and cause pain to them if they choose poorly, but, the call will be pleasant if they hire you and you do your work well. This is not about money - simply - and it’s not about being good enough or bad. In the real world, nobody gives us grades that mean anything, what measures a man is his level of contentment or even his level of joy in the midst of all of these wild, heavy, uncontrollable things we encounter in reality. If the person interviewing you is a human, too, they are under stress, they are looking for light today, and they are striving to enjoy the work, the weight and the pain of staying alive in spite of it all.

Empathize

And you might find

You can be yourself

In the face of an unfamiliar person

Decide

To go inside the uncomfortable feeling

To turn it into

Something that is succeeding

You’ll never get out of

Difficult situations

While you are living

They find us with unempathetic consistency

Take the time

In an interview

To relax

And realize

The most familiar feeling

You have

Is also something

Every other human

Knows well.

The pain or the pleasure of breathing,

Heat and cold and want of a blanket,

Pairs of socks,

Someone to laugh with,

A reliable work-friend

And moments to feel free as a child

No rejection

No stressing

No worries

A place and a person that

Is their home.

Though you’ve never seen this particular human’s eyes before and though you cannot honestly predict what they will say in the next moment, at the core of their being and yours is the same material pattern. You can be confident anywhere and any time if you just keep the truth of reality in your mind. There are no grades, no hierarchies that can change the simple fact that we all have hope, experience fear and feel constantly surprised. Don’t let your nerves deceive you; this is only the familiar materials you’ve been living in since the beginning.